Tasha Kheiriddin: Quebec charter was always about one thing: dividing people between ‘us’ and ‘them’

Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois could not be having a better week. As public hearings on her party’s controversial Charter of Secularism begin in Quebec, the rest of Canada is rife with stories of faith-based gender discrimination. Some are seizing on these cases as a sign that Quebec’s Charter, which would ban the wearing of visible religious symbols by all state employees, is necessary to protect the equality of men and women — and that other provinces should consider similar measures.

Serge Gauthier, president of the Charlevoix Historical Society, travelled to the National Assembly Tuesday to deliver his unwavering support to the Parti Québécois government’s charter of Quebec values.

And just in case anyone thought him intolerant of minorities, he assured the legislature committee holding public hearings on the charter that he has rubbed shoulders with “a lot of immigrants” over the years.

“My brother-in-law is Laotian. We have known him for 30 years, and on New Year’s Day, he ate Charlevoix tourtière with us,” he said in reference to the signature meat pie of his region northeast of Quebec City. “So, we are very welcoming and have been for a long time.”

The incident prompted a gleeful PQ Minister Bernard Drainville to cluck that the Quebec Charter was “opening eyes in the Rest of Canada.” Those eyes no doubt opened even wider this week at the story of a young woman taking an aikido class at a community centre in Halifax; she complained when her teacher divided the class along gender lines at the request of a male Muslim student. The student then distributed religious literature that authorized husbands to administer a “light strike” to their wives in cases of “serious moral misconduct.” Amazingly, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission and the Halifax Recreation Administration both ruled that the teacher had acted correctly in granting the student’s request.

Do these cases bolster the PQ’s case for its Charter, or cries for similar legislation in other parts of Canada? While a kneejerk response may be yes, a closer examination yields a resolute no. The PQ created its Secularism project for reasons that have nothing to do with the safeguarding of the equality of women and men — and it should not serve as a model for anyone.

Quebec society already engaged in extensive public debate about religious accommodations in 2007, at the hearings of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission. The PQ’s Charter does not respond to a pressing need, but to electoral calculus: It is designed to create a wedge issue for the next election, dividing Quebecers into “us” and “them,” and diverting attention from the government’s dismal economic record, including anemic growth and the fact that it will not balance the province’s books for another two years.

On its merits, the Charter fails because it attacks belief instead of behaviour. It does not merely seek to solve accommodation issues, but bans the wearing of religious symbols by all employees of the state — a clear violation of their individual rights.

Drainville called this provision “an essential and unchangeable part of the bill. Why? Because we have to incarnate secularism.” Memo to Drainville: sporting the symbol of one’s faith is not the same as asking others to accommodate the tenets of that faith. A person should be free to believe what he or she wishes, but not to compel others to follow those beliefs, notably when this would violate other rights that are protected by law.

Canadian courts already have wrestled with the conflict posed by the Charter of Rights and Freedom’s protection of both religious freedom and equality rights, including those related to gender and sexual orientation. A blanket bill such as the Quebec Charter of Secularism ignores the fact that these situations must be decided on a case by case basis — and that is it impossible to predetermine all future situations that could arise.

So while Marois and Drainville may rejoice at the current furor in English Canada, those who live there should not seek to emulate their example. Separation of Church and State, yes. State-sanctioned discrimination for electoral gain, non merci.

In the wake of a Grammy Awards ceremony that disappointed many, from Kanye West to the masses on Twitter lamenting the state of pop music, a historical perspective is key. Few are better poised to offer one than Andy Kim.